MP3 Player with Per-Song Memory?

May 11, 2009 7:33 AM

Is there an MP3 player that remembers where you are within each song or program?

I'm looking for a very specific feature in an MP3 player: keeping track of progress for each file. My DVR does this, for example. When I choose a recorded program, it picks up right where I left off, for each program.

I've looked over the feature lists for many players, and haven't found this feature specifically listed, but I suspect (or hope) that there is a player that does this, even if the capability is not touted.

posted by king walnut to Technology (14 answers total)

My iPod does this. Specifically with podcasts.
posted by purephase at 7:34 AM on May 11, 2009

All of my iPods do this for podcasts.
posted by Oktober at 7:35 AM on May 11, 2009

The Rockbox firmware available for most major mp3 players has a "resume where i was" button.

I think most mp3 players will leave off wherever you last left it anyways.
posted by JauntyFedora at 7:35 AM on May 11, 2009

If you have an iPod, you can specify in iTunes per-song whether or not you want to resume playback. If you want it to remember position and resume for all tracks, then you can select-all your iTunes library, choose "get info," select the resume on playback option and apply the changes.
posted by helios at 7:39 AM on May 11, 2009 [1 favorite]

MP3 players tend not to auto-resume on a file-by-file basis. It makes more sense with (for example) music albums and audiobooks to resume on a per-folder basis, which is what my Sansa Fuze does. Having the player auto-resume each file in a folder individually would probably be contrary to most users' expectation - people don't tend to listen in that way.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:42 AM on May 11, 2009

Response by poster: Interesting, maybe I should give iPod another look. I sort of ruled them out because my kids have them and we are constantly running into headaches with iTunes, and also the bang/buck ratio is pretty low. But I really want this feature, so if iPod is back in the running.
posted by king walnut at 7:42 AM on May 11, 2009

The Creative Zen and Creative Zen Micro Photo both do this. My sister has had at least two Sony players that do this, although I don't know the model numbers. I think it's a very common feature.

I've seen this feature referred to as "autoresume", which might help your searching.
posted by metaBugs at 7:44 AM on May 11, 2009

On total failure to preview: The players only do this for the last track you were listening to. On re-reading, I get the impression that you want to be able to do this for every track? In which case, the Creative players definitely don't and I can't vouch for the Sony ones any more. Sorry.
posted by metaBugs at 7:48 AM on May 11, 2009

What Phone do you have? the podcatcher DoggCatcher app on Android does this, and with a 16GB microSD card in the phone, and a extUSB to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter, it makes a decent enough player.
posted by jrishel at 7:55 AM on May 11, 2009

Response by poster: Yes, I'd like the resume feature per track. I did discover the "autoresume" keyword, but I'm never sure if they mean per-track or just the last track listened to.
posted by king walnut at 8:04 AM on May 11, 2009

In the 'Options' tab of iTunes' 'Get Info' menu for each song there's a tickbox for "Remember Playback Position" that for songs is off by default but is on for audiobooks and podcasts. If you tick it, then when the song is synched to your iPod the setting will carry across to the player (I just tested it). (And you can bulk-tick the boxes by selecting lots of songs, then going to "Get Info" - it will apply it to all selected)
posted by gregjones at 8:19 AM on May 11, 2009

The Cowon S9 has a bookmark feature that will, I believe, do what you want.
posted by Nick Jordan at 8:44 AM on May 11, 2009

Ditto an iPod or other player running Rockbox. It will keep a list of bookmarks. I have mine set to start up with the bookmark screen which shows a list of the last 10 places I left off listening.
posted by quarterframer at 9:26 AM on May 11, 2009

gregjones has it. This is very easy with iPod/iTunes. There's no global setting to enable this always, for all files, but you can select it per-track in the Get Info window for each song, or enable it across multiple files at once by selecting many files to edit at a time. I use that occasionally for audiobook files and it even syncs the playback position between the iPod and iTunes. Very convenient for long files.
posted by raygan at 10:06 PM on May 12, 2009